The Justice of Jalxar

Fourth Doctor Adventures #2.4

Released: 11 March 2013

Listened: 6/9/22

This story is a bit more actiony than the last one, at least on the part of our heroes. The Doctor and Romana detect alien tech where it shouldn’t be, and go to investigate, ending up in Victorian London. It’s just about 10 years after “Talons of Weng-Chiang,” so they go looking for Jago and Litefoot to help. They’re unaware that J&L have probably met his later incarnations at this point, and have their own series by now. For their part, George and Henry are pleasantly surprised to see the Fourth Doctor again, and are very surprised by Romana, since they were expecting Leela. In fact, Romana gets a lot of agency in this story, running around solving mysteries on her own, with Jago in tow, who has developed a crush on her. This is a John Dorney story, and although the plot isn’t as twisty as he normally writes, it is interesting. There’s a vigilante running around London punishing wrongdoers, but neither Jago or Litefoot, nor the Doctor or Romana, have the cultural context for a “super hero,” so it just never gets mentioned. The ending is a bit darker than anticipated, but not in a bad way. It’s another strong story in this set.